7
It wasn’t the first time I’d sat down at an unfamiliar table surrounded by complete strangers, but this was certainly the first time they were so inviting.
I sat by myself on the far side of the table, with both Cassidy and Ariel directly across from me. Orion was on my left at the foot, while Henry was opposite him at the head. A large platter full of homemade schnitzel laid in the center, with an adjacent plate of potato-pancakes (or, as Henry had called them, Kartoffelpuffers,) and a bowl of cabbage salad.
I had skipped lunch earlier, considering the team was planning to grab a meal on the way back from Boston, so it didn’t take much convincing for me to load my plate and dig in. Henry must’ve been some kind of chef, because the food tasted restaurant-grade. The meat was tender and juicy, with the breading browned amazingly. The potatoes were perfectly crunchy on the outside, but rich and creamy inside. Everything was lightyears ahead of the mediocre dining hall slop I used to eat every day. I ate my fill in a matter of minutes, and briefly wondered if I still had a real choice on whether or not I could go back. My palate was so spoiled, I didn’t know if it could readjust to college fare.
I was so captivated by dinner that I ended up tuning out the conversations going on around me, and by the time I had finished, I realized every eye was on me. I went stock still for a moment.
Henry spoke up first, “I presume you liked it?”
I gave back a noncommittal, “It was pretty good.” I didn’t have much to say after that, and apparently, neither did anyone else. Still, I remained the center of attention. I could feel the back of my neck going cold.
Orion broke in before the silence could turn awkward. “Well, now that you have a good meal in you, we should probably get down to business.” He put down his cutlery, and leaned forward in his chair, resting his chin on folded hands propped up by his elbows. “You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. Where do you want to start?”
I took a deep breath, and recalled everything I wanted to ask. It took a moment to sort through all of the questions, until I found the one that seemed most relevant. “Why don’t we start with what exactly this ‘Lumen’ shit even is?” I posed it to Orion, but he shot his glance over to Cassidy, and I followed suit. Ariel and Henry both joined in.
Cassidy looked around for a moment, sighed, and asked, “You really want me to do it? You know I’m just going to talk his ear off.”
“Hey, I didn’t mind so much when you gave me the run-down.” Ariel chipped in.
“You fell asleep half-way through.”
I interrupted, “I think I can live with that better than the chasm of knowledge I’m currently suffering.” I was eager to learn for the first time in god knows how long.
“Fine,” Cassidy faced me, her eyes meeting mine, and asked, “Do you understand the concept of the human soul?”
“Uh…yes?”
“Good, you’re halfway there.” She took a deep breath. “Put simply, souls are real, and only humans possess them. We theorize that they, or more specifically, the Spark at their core, are the true center of emotional processing in the human body, like a metaphysical organ.
“It takes up the same space as your physical heart,” she continued, “And when any part of your skin comes into direct contact with sunlight, it spontaneously generates Lumen based on the intensity of emotion being felt at that given moment, in a process we call regeneration.”
I broke in, “This is all very neat, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
Ariel took the opportunity to shush me again, “Let her finish.”
“As for what Lumen is, well not even we are completely sure. It acts like light, yet it demonstrably has mass, and at the same time, no tangible weight. It’s completely imperceptible except to those who, through some means or another, have an excess of it in their system. The atmosphere is completely full of it, which is what enables our night vision, but it has an on again off again relationship when it comes to interacting with physical matter. In essence, it’s raw, unfettered…energy.”
I could feel Cassidy dancing around the point and felt the need to clarify. “So it’s…magic?”
Three yeses and a single no answered me simultaneously. Everyone looked over at Cassidy again. She groaned, “Just because we don’t know everything about it yet doesn’t mean we never will.”
“And that doesn’t mean,” Ariel poked Cassidy in the shoulder, “That you aren’t being a massive buzzkill.”
Cassidy rolled her eyes and took a bite from a potato-pancake. After a moment, she asked, “Think you understand any better now?”
Everything she said matched up with what I observed. The golden mist that shifted based on mood, the night vision, but it only brought up even more questions. “Kind of, but there’s still some gaps.”
She probed, “Like…?”
“Like, ‘What are Daemons?’” I answered, “And, ‘Why can my arrows turn around mid-flight?’”
“Let’s start with the first one. Remember how I said the atmosphere is full of Lumen?”
“Yes, I remember one minute ago.”
“Well, that’s thanks to humans. When regular people generate Lumen, it’s expelled from their body and into the atmosphere, where it stays until it floats out into space.” She stretched her arms out and gestured at the entire apartment. “This entire building is full of it, which makes sense considering who we are. That’s why it’s so bright here despite no lights being on.”
As the sun was going down earlier, I had tried flicking a light switch to no avail, which was when Orion explained to me that none of the ceiling lights had any bulbs. “No need for ‘em.” he had told me. Guess that’s one way to save on electricity.
Cassidy went on, “Daemons, however, are born from voids in this atmospheric Lumen. When a place hasn’t seen people in a long time, or when the people there aren’t generating enough Lumen to keep up, empty pockets can develop that, if left alone for too long, turn into Daemons.”
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“That’s what attacked me earlier today right?” I shivered a bit recalling the event. “It looked like an amoeba if it were the size of a car and made of darkness.”
“Daemons are made out of Umbra, centered around a Core, the antitheses of Lumen and Sparks respectively. Like antimatter to our matter, when Umbra comes into contact with Lumen, the two annihilate. They have an animalistic, primitive intelligence that gets better the larger they are, but their survival instinct seems to be reversed. Their goal is to find a Spark that they can annihilate using their Core, ensuring their own destruction, while erasing the greatest amount of Lumen in the process. To try to achieve that, they’re constantly hunting us down.”
I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and whipped my head over toward the sliding glass door which led out to the porch. Outside, a dark cloud was repeatedly charging at and scattering against the barrier around the building, until it eventually gave up and drifted away. So that’s what it’s for. Nobody else seemed phased, like this was an everyday occurrence. Great, something else to get used to.
I steered things back on track. “So, when that Daemon was attacking me, it was attacking my Lumen?”
“Precisely. The reason you couldn’t move your arm or leg after getting hit is because Lumen isn’t just the product of regeneration, it also acts to transmit desire across your body. Similar to how nerves transmit electrical impulses that tell the muscles to move, your Lumen is what tells those same muscles that they want to move. When that signal can’t reach, your brain interprets it as numbness.”
More and more pieces were falling into place as I nodded along with Cassidy’s words, but something felt off all of a sudden. Wait…
I paused and furrowed my brow. “I didn’t tell you about where the Daemon hit me.”
She shot me a knowing smirk. “That leads us to your second question, about your powers.” I heard her chair scrape against the floor as she stood up. She nodded her head toward the living room, bidding me follow. I slid my chair back and walked around the table. I heard Henry mutter as I walked past him, “Oh, this is my favorite part.”
Everyone had finished eating at this point, and it looked to be time for a demonstration of sorts. The others walked back into the living room through the café door behind me. Cassidy sauntered over to the couch, where she motioned for me to take a seat. It was only when I realized that she was still just barely above eye-level after I was seated did I notice how short she was, around five feet two inches.
Cassidy launched back into lecture mode. “The reason you can do everything you have,” she started, pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table, “Is because you are one of a rare few in the world that had the potential to Awaken.”
“Oh great, another vocab word.” I was done hiding my exasperation.
“Do you, or do you not want to learn?”
I flopped my head back on the couch cushion and met the gaze of Orion standing behind me. I whispered, “Is she always like this?”
He leaned toward me and muttered in my ear, “Only when she’s riled up.”
Cassidy cleared her throat loudly. I turned my attention back to her. “Thank you. Awakening is an incredibly rare phenomenon. By my estimates, only one in every hundred-million people has the potential, and even less ever actually do. The catalyst seems to be an incredibly strong desire, which will inform what exactly your abilities are. All we know is that every person’s powers are unique. For example,” She closed her eyes, and for a split second, a small distortion rippled off her body and out through the entire space. Cassidy opened her eyes once more, and they were completely engulfed in the golden glow of Lumen, sclera and all. “I can use my Lumen to extend my senses outward in a radius of about five-thousand feet, letting me sense other traces of Lumen, and lack thereof.”
The glow in her eyes faded, the gold receding back into her irises, as the same distortion from before reversed its course and collapsed back into her. I started to put two and two together. “So the whole time I was being attacked…”
“I knew exactly what was happening.” She stated. “I also knew the Daemon was nearby and would probably be attracted to your Lumen if you used any. I considered it a bit of a test, to see how well you’d react in a crisis.”
I suddenly felt horrendously manipulated. “Well, did you learn anything at least?”
“Only that you desperately need our help if you want to survive out there.”
I grit my teeth.
Henry took charge and suggested, “Why don’t we get the rest of the introductions out of the way now?” I looked over to him, and saw him stretch out a hand, palm facing outward. “I can shoot pure Lumen from my hands. It’s a bit bland, but it gets the job done.” Lumen began to gather in the center, forming a brilliant glow, until it shot outward and smashed against the far wall, scattering the Lumen, but leaving everything else unscathed. He looked over at Ariel.
“He already knows what I can do. Orion, you finish up.”
“Way ahead of you, lass.” Orion, apparently finishing a sketch on a notepad, walked around the couch, tore off the front piece of notepaper, and slapped it onto the coffee table. As I saw traces of Lumen rush into the paper, I flinched as a massive, pyramidal spike instantly shot out of the paper and towards the ceiling. It was easily a meter tall and made entirely of translucent gold. It sat on the table for a few seconds, before its form dissolved and disappeared. “I can manifest what I draw, though it does have its limits.”
I looked back at the table, and all that remained of the paper was a small pile of grey ash. Does his power also generate heat?
Before I could ask, Henry spoke again, “But, that’s enough about us, what can your powers do?”
This would be slightly embarrassing considering the show they just put on. “All I really know is that I can make arrows I loose go where I want them to, that’s it.”
Ariel, leaning onto the pony wall to the dining room, pitched in with, “Well, have you tried it on anything else?”
I readied myself to respond that I had, until I thought back to the past couple weeks, and realized that I actually hadn’t. Something this new and ever so slightly terrifying, anyone sane would hesitate to expand what they try it on. How could I have known it wouldn’t blow me up? “Y’know, I actually haven’t.”
Ariel, instead of using the perfectly functional door, decided instead to use her body weight to flip herself over the pony wall, grab a fork from the table, and then vault back over it, before walking over and handing it to me. “Try using that,” she said, pressing it into both my hands. Cassidy knelt down near me, her eyes glossed over once more, her face one of careful inspection.
I held the fork still, closed my eyes, and tried to conjure up the feeling I got whenever I loosed an arrow. The feeling of control, harnessing its momentum, guiding it on its path. I felt the now familiar sensation of energy, of Lumen, rushing down my arms and into my hands, the static and heat not registering as Lumen pooled in my palms. I opened my eyes.
The fork was coated in film of Lumen, which flowed over its surface like water, attracted to it by its own invisible gravity.
It worked? It worked.
“What do I do now?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Try taking your hands away.” Ariel was watching, captivated, as were Henry and Orion.
I listened well. Slowly, I inched my hands away from the handle, which stayed stiff as a board, stuck in the air like it was nailed there. Eventually, both hands were next to my head, as the utensil continued to hover in place. “Should I…try to move it?”
I saw Cassidy and Ariel both nod. I obliged.
This isn’t anything like an arrow. There’s nothing propelling it outside of myself. I did the first thing that came to mind. I focused all my attention on it, jabbed my finger forward and commanded, “Go!”
A massive shattering sound rang through the whole apartment as the fork, shot forward at speeds comparable to a bullet, split the TV in half and dented the wall behind. I heard curses from all directions and from multiple languages as everyone backed away from the rubble. All I could do was stare dumbstruck at the destruction I caused with a piece of silverware, and think, Oh, fuck.